Set in Stone
by michael1812
Summary: When the Angels turn the tables on the Doctor and turn him to stone, doors open that must never be opened. The statues of Rome are imbued with a life force the world has never felt before, and the Doctor's hands have never felt so cold. A visit to Michelangelo's gallery might not have been such a good idea after all.
1. Heart of Stone

Somehow the paintbrush had done it. What had the Doctor called it? The abstract escaping into reality. The Angel had not travelled across the bristles like static energy, but entered through the eyes. An image of an Angel is an Angel.

Clara crawled backwards across the cold marble floor of the gallery, away from the Angel as quickly as possible, when her hand touched stone. It was the Doctor.

On the floor in front of her now, heaving and panting for breath, was an Angel. An actual, real-life, flesh and blood angel, with feathers for wings, with muscles and bones and a dress as if it had just stepped out of a storybook of Greek mythology. Clara clawed across the Doctor's pants, trying to get up, but there was nothing she could do. He'd been petrified. Perseus failed to defeat Medusa. His face had been sculpted into permanent surprise, because finally someone had managed to shut him up. The Doctor had been turned to stone.

He'd become a permanent addition to Michelangelo's curriculum vitae. One day, he'd make a fine exhibition in the British Museum. The Angel laughed.

"Doctor!" Clara begged. Then she blinked.

A stone finger was suddenly pressed into her lips, shushing her. His eyebrows looked even more menacing immortalized in marble.

Her eyes followed the Doctor's other hand, pointed at the Angel. Then she closed them shut.

And opened them again. The Doctor had moved. She blinked and watched him move, like a stop-motion film. Image after image, motion after motion. Slowly, the Doctor mimed his plan. In his hand, the sonic screwdriver had been carved out of the same stone as his flesh.

"A quantum lock, it's like a door, isn't it?" Clara said. "If it can be opened once, it can be opened again. All we need is a key. Sort of. I know it's not like that, but let's just say it is. So what do I do, Doctor? Is it the brush? Is it the Angel? Is it me?"

Blink. Blink. Blink. The last time, the Doctor disappeared, leaving only a handful of gravel behind.

"That's not good. Doctor!"

As the Angel got up, spreading its wings wide in triumph, it moved its hands through her black hair. Her entire body seemed covered in white chalk. Dust clouds followed whenever she moved.

Her face was round and innocent and her eyes were paler than blue. The Angel was beautiful, stunningly so, even. And she wasn't weeping. In fact, her features morphed into a snarling lion, with a mouth full of fangs. Her hands turned into claws. She shrieked and Clara had to cover her ears. The air itself seemed to have gone colder. The Angel was drawing energy from the room.

Then Clara saw the Doctor behind the Angel, frozen in a single gesture, pointing at the door.

"Yup, time to run."


	2. Made in His Image

The Italian bishop moved his itchy miter slightly back. He handed his staff to the cleric.

"What's this supposed to be then? Is this Michelangelo's new work? How bizarre."

When he noticed he was standing in some gravel, he stepped back, as to not get it on his yellow robe. He squinted at the cleric as if this was somehow his personal fault, and then arched his brow at the sculpture before him again. The elderly man's failing eyesight made him lean forward to look closer.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he exclaimed. The cleric shrunk back in an involuntary reflex. "Is this supposed to be a sculpture of our Lord?!"

The cleric swallowed and reviewed the sculpture a second time, to form a more careful response and to make his opinion sound more traditional. It hardly worked though. The same thoughts as before swirled through his mind. Art was a world beyond his grasp, a spiritual world of taste and reflection he couldn't dare insult. Artists have such fickle hearts. He didn't want to offend them by not liking it. Whereas the bishop didn't want to give anyone any unnecessary favors by liking anything at all. He preferred to make people struggle to gain his approval. That's the power of the hat, he supposed. His hat was smaller than the bishop's, but he preferred it anyway.

'It's kind of a non-traditional approach to our Lord, I suppose," the cleric admitted. "But it still fits. I mean, he still looks quite powerful and authoritative. And the hair's not too bad."

"The hair?" the bishop snapped. "If the hair looked any wavier they'd look like demonic horns!"

"And he looks quite stern, doesn't he? Sort of purposeful, angry even, almost like we're standing in his way. At least he got that right."

"Our Lord is ever Patient!" the bishop turned his gaze to the heavens as he tried to recite from scripture. "To his immortal self, our ways are like the ways of the ant! His forgiveness is Eternal, where our ways of the Flesh are weak! To think, His love even touches fallen angels… How can one sculpture compare to His eternal magnificence?!"

With a snap of his fingers, the bishop demanded the return of his staff to his divine fingers. The cleric knew it wasn't real gold, although the lining of his robe was.

"Besides, he doesn't even have a beard."

The cleric looked again.

"Hold on," he said.

"Tell Michelangelo to put this in a dark corner of his studio somewhere, and maybe stick to painting."

"Sir…"

"What?"

"Does it look any different to you?"

"What'd you mean?"

"Well, it looks different. I mean, the eyes."

"Yes, the eyes aren't exactly even, are they? One's sort of angry, and the other's sort of…"

"And look at his hands! They were in his pockets before!"

"No. No, they weren't."

"Yes, they were!"

"You must be imagining things. Surely, it can't…."

As they turned their gazes up again, they were taken aback again. Their slippers slid on gravel.

"Ooh, he looks very cross now, doesn't he? Look at those eyebrows! He changed! Look!"

"It can't be! Statues… they can't move!"

The cleric threw himself to the floor to pray, kneeling. The bishop wrung both hands around his staff as he analyzed the statue's face. Surely it couldn't have changed?

Hands. Eyes. Hands. Eyes. They couldn't have moved!

Eyeing the cleric praying on the floor, the bishop made a cross, tapping his forehead, chest, and shoulders, and finally managed to shut his mouth.

They always said Michelangelo's sculptures looked so lifelike….

Maybe God had finally outdone himself. Maybe he had heard his insults of Michelangelo's work and wanted to teach him a lesson in humility.

He closed his eyes and threw himself to the floor beside the cleric. Clasping hands, together, the two religious men begged for forgiveness to the floor.

When they finally looked up, the statue had gone. 

* * *

In Michelangelo's Rome, children played along the columns of the courtyard, their sticks serving as swords. The sun started casting long shadows in the street, and the clouds on the horizon slowly turned orange. Dogs barked while the city fell to sleep. Mothers were yelling for their children to come home, but they weren't done playing.

They dropped their sticks and ran across the courtyard where their mothers could never look to find them.

"What do we play now?" the girl said. She was the tallest of the three. "I'm not tired."

The two other boys froze, because something moved in the shadows. It looked like an adult, and adults are always scary.

A dog's loud bark suddenly stopped, and there was a crunching sound, like someone was snapping lots of twigs. Suddenly something flew into the air, a giant wingspan, and landed at the heart of the courtyard, barefoot on cold stone. The children stared in awe as the beautiful woman spread her wings, and she smiled at them, putting a finger to her lips so they could whisper, and share a secret.

"Can I play too?" it said with a voice silken and soft, as it kneeled before them. The children nodded.

"Listen. Run and hide," the Angel said. "and when I catch you, you're dead."

The Angel waited. It never blinked. The children's eyes were beaming with joy. One of them was caught off guard by her choice of words. They grabbed each other's hands and ran away, without ever seeing the dog's carcass in the corner.

The Angel stood upright and slowly put her hands in front of her face, and started counting.


	3. The Creator

Michelangelo looked haunted. His assistants had never seen him like this. All dressed in black he came bounding into his studio telling everyone to leave. He wouldn't hear of even his best friend's pleas for answers. He sent his nephew home to wait for him there, both knowing he was lying when he said he was coming soon.

He clutched his black clothes like a man in a blizzard would cover himself in a coat against the cold. His thinning hair was coal black, and his beard was wiry and frazzled. Clara panted, out of breath, not knowing what to say to the famous sculptor.

"Michelangelo, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but get yourself together. I need your help."

The studio stank of buckets of old paint and dried pig's skin. Every bit of wood was covered in colored spots.

Clara thought out loud. "It's got to be something to do with you. I mean, it all started here."

Blocks of marble stood unfinished in the hall, as if the statues were still waiting to be uncovered. Clara's mind was racing, seeing bits and pieces and trying to get it together, like the Doctor would. She had to think like the Doctor to get him back.

"It came alive, but it didn't start out that way. I mean, you made it come alive."

Michelangelo shook his head. "I am but the instrument. Nature cannot create such beauty. Only God can. I merely free the forms that are already there, hidden inside the stone, and I chip away the parts that don't belong."

"You already saw it, didn't you? You saw what the block was going to be. You saw it in your mind's eye." Clara turned to look straight at the divine painter. "Because that's what the Angel saw. The Angel was already there. In your eye. You poured everything into that sculpture. Your heart, your soul. You are connected. It's a part of you. You made the Angel and the Angel made you."

Clara smiled. "You're the key. We have to use that somehow. But how? 'Cause the Angel's not just heart and soul, it's got skin and hair too. It's got DNA. Which means there's something we're missing. The Doctor would say we're asking the wrong questions. So what's the right one? Think, Clara. Think."

Her pacing did not alleviate her worries. Michelangelo approached his work in progress to stare at his marble creations, half finished, the chisels still scattered on the floor where his assistants had dropped them.

"If only they could speak," Michelangelo said. "They could reveal their secrets to us."

Clara stopped, and looked. From the block of granite seemed to emerge a muscled king, deeply troubled and frowned, with a long flowing beard as Neptune.

"Mike, can I call you Mike? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. Could you step back a bit there?"

"Don't touch me. Who do you think you are?"

"I'm sorry, mister Grouchy. "

"You speak of monsters, while I speak of miracles."

"Okay fine, call it whatever you like, but could you do something for me for one second? Could you close your eyes?"

Clara fixed her gaze on Neptune and didn't let go.

"They can't move if you're looking at it," she said.

"You mean…"

"Possibly, yes. There's only one way to be sure."

Michelangelo swallowed.

"On the count of three," Clara said. "One."

Michelangelo touched the king's face, stroked the king's stone beard, and nothing happened.

"Two."

It was almost a father's touch.

"If I'm right, something's imbibing these statues with life force. It means this moment has been prepared for. It means we're not alone. Or, you know, we're just scared of a slab of stone right now. That's a possibility. Embarrassing, right?"

"Close your eyes, girl, and we shall see if your fears are justified."

"Sorry for boring you! _Three!"_

And they closed their eyes. The king moved.


	4. Innocence Lost

"Watch the ball! Watch the ball! Keep your eyes on the ball!"

The gambler's pupils flitted back and forth, left to right, right to left, watching the trickster employ his sleight of hand. The man was all smiles and stares. He hardly ever watched his own hands move as he moved the three cups, from left, right, to center. Not that the gambler had time to focus on the trickster's bald head, the flickering of the flame by dying dawn, or the cold wind that sent a shiver up his spine.

Out of all people, the gambler worries most about the littlest things in life, knowing the bane of his own irresponsibility. They don't play games. They bet their livelihood on these traps. They play the game not to beat it, but to beat others, and keep beating them until they lose.

The trickster stopped to move up his woolen sleeves, to somehow prove he wasn't playing the player like a bard would play a lute. The gambler didn't ask. The proof was another distraction, to distract from all the cheating. Because the ball was resting safely at the bottom of his pocket.

"Tell me then," the trickster spoke. A gold tooth gleamed in the dark, yellow and black. "Where is the ball? If you get it right, you'll double your money. Get it wrong, and you'll get double nothing."

"And what if I get triple nothing? That ball better be under there."

The trickster smiled. "Come on," he said. "Would I lie to you?"

A five/fingered claw dug itself into the fabric of his tunic, the nails pressing deeply into the flesh of his shoulder. The gambler froze, watching a monstrous face rise from behind the trickster, a face of ultimate beauty and love, but when it looked at him, the claw's grip tightened, the trickster groaned in agony, and the face transformed into horror.

"A harpy!" the gambler cried out. "A harpy!"

The trickster's eyes turned completely milky white. His face turned deathly pale, like all the color was drained from his body, until he was nothing but transparent skin and blue veins. Then his features froze into place, the edges hardened, and a sheen of chalk covered his skin. The effects spread to his tunic, as the trickster's entire body turned to stone.

The gambler ran, but not before clearing the table of his winnings.

* * *

Clara followed the screams.

Statues of children appeared in the square. Wailing mothers rocked back and forth in the arms of their stricken husbands, as others evacuated the square as soon as a shadow of a wing appeared overhead. Clara could see it in the distance. The Angel's silhouette, struggling to lift a grown man several feet into the air as it clapped its powerful wings. They didn't just take energy. They took people. Why?

 _Why do animals take prey?_ But animals don't toy with their prey. At least most don't.

"Why children?" Clara asked out loud.

Michelangelo mournfully examined the statues. Some of the children seemed to have turned in mid-step, running away from the Angel with a foot hanging in the air. "Don't let them fall!" he told the parents of the victims. "They break so easily…"

"We'll find a way to bring them back," she said. "The Doctor always does."

At some point she forgets when the truth ended and the lies started, but there was nothing else she could do.

"Where is the Doctor?" Michelangelo said. "Shouldn't he be here? Shouldn't he help?"

"He is helping. In his own way. Trust me, I know him."

He probably had a lot on his mind at the moment, though. Clara knew the real question wasn't whether he should help them, but whether they should help him. If her suspicions were correct, the Doctor was finding himself into trouble. Again.

"Where's the Angel going? Can you see?"

"The south side of the city. It's heading towards the river."

"Anything special down there? Anything worth mentioning?"

"Just the water. Nothing else I can think of. I rarely leave my studio, I'm too busy with work."

"Think Michelangelo! There's gotta be something. Water. Waters means life. Water brings life. Maybe they're using the water. Maybe they're generating power with water. Does that sound plausible to you? Come on, inspire me Michelangelo!"

"Angels don't care for water. Stones sink," Michelangelo said. "No, these are creatures of hell. They have corrupted my powers, stolen the divine from me. They mock my work, laugh at me. They are tormentors and thieves, who eat children and harvest men!"

"What would the Doctor do?" Clara told herself. The Doctor would know by now. He'd see the right words. The right clues had to be staring them in the face by now.

* * *

The TARDIS saw the Doctor. She always sees the Doctor.

He came in like a breeze, blowing open the TARDIS doors invisible to the naked eye. The cloister bells started ringing the moment the doors swung shut again.

Dials seemed to turn on their own. Levers were pressed down and buttons were pressed one only moments after the other. The Doctor worked fast in this form, and yet he tried everything in his power to change back from it.

With a loud 'bang' like the sound of the blast doors of a nuclear fallout shelter coming down, the TARDIS went into lockdown, triggering red emergency lights which submerged the control room in imminent gloom.

The screen atop the TARDIS console started whirring with static, buzzing and crackling, until a live feed of that very same console turned up.

"Clara!" a voice came from the speakers and a figure emerged on the screen dressed in dark blue. His jacket was lined with crimson red. "Clara, are you there?"

The Doctor's face filled up the screen as if he was trying to cram it through, unsuccessfully.

"Either you're unusually quiet or I'm talking to myself, either way, I suggest you steer clear…"

He waved his hands about as he dashed from one part of the console to the other, flipping switches which simultaneously flipped in the real world by some invisible hand. Then the Doctor stopped, reaching the final switch. He looked down in trepidation.

"…because I'm about to do something very very dangerous."

He flipped the switch. A light, like lightning, surged through the core of the TARDIS console and struck the Doctor where he stood. White light engulfed the room, and then faded until it took on the shape of a man. It was as if the light itself had wrapped itself around him. The Doctor screamed.

* * *

"Why here? Why me?" Michelangelo said. "There must be hundreds of sculptors all over Rome, all over the world even! Why was I blessed with this curse?"

"Hold on," Clara said and her thoughts froze. "Why'd you say 'they'?

"What do you mean?"

"You said 'they'. _They laughed at you._ Why'd you say 'they'? Like, in plural? You said 'they', as in multiple Angels, while I thankfully only know of the one. You even spoke as if you knew or met them before. Why'd you say 'they'?"

"I don't know… I just…"

Suddenly he cried out in pain and held his abdomen. His hands contorted into twisted things, as if the bones themselves were rearranging themselves underneath his skin. Then his face distorted the same way and fangs pressed against the flesh of his upper lip. His jaw dislodged and grew larger, like a snake's. His pupils grew larger until his eyes were only black. From his back sprouted wings, and through his makeshift shoes tore nails like those of a lion.

"Okay, that's new," Clara said, her level of fright rising by the second. "Michelangelo's an Angel."

Then she snapped out of her fright for a second to ponder that. "I probably should have seen that coming."


	5. Pride of Man

He was called Pope Julius II, the Warrior Pope, and he did not take kindly to the bad state St. Peter's Basilica was in.

All the papers and drawings and schematics for the reconstruction of this decaying monument had been placed to cover two long tables in both aisles of the grand basilica, and in his spare time the Pope had been known to walk circles around both tables, his hand hovering over the papers, all without saying a word.

He went over every detail of the project, like a man planning to attend his own funeral.

"This will become my tomb, housed within the basilica for centuries to come," he had once told the selection of cardinals that was always waiting for him in the wings, plus any servant that had overheard without permission. "This is how I will be remembered. Through the genius of Michelangelo."

He traced a line across one of the papers with a finger, before swiping it to the ground with a single stroke. "Burn it," he added, and immediately someone would come to collect the scrap and remove it from his sight.

He had a white beard, with a patch of black in the middle that seemed to split his beard in two, grown in the shape of a square. His equally greying hair, that wasn't growing from his ears, was tucked neatly underneath a soft red cap. His mozzetta, a sartorial vestment and cape, had the same red color, like rich burgundy, above his piercingly white cassock.

Pale white light shone through the tall and dirty windows. The six jeweled rings on the Pope's hands glimmered. Suddenly the doors opened, a priest entered, and a gust of wind blew some papers from the table. The priest apologized silently, and rushed to aid in the collection of the runaway schematics. His footfalls echoed loudly across the aisles, but the Pope paid him no notice, lost in thought.

He could almost see it. His grand magnificent castle. His final resting place.

Death had been on his mind ever since he started his Papacy, with so many people vying for the job and wanting to assassinate him if they could. Ever since he laid his eyes on his predecessors plans for the basilica, he could not stop himself from imagining, until the opportunity presented himself in the form of the great Michelangelo.

As the priest gathered the papers from the dusty floor, the sketches drew his eye.

"There are so many statues," he said. "Can the Church really afford this?"

The cardinals silently gasped. One actually held his chest as they all turned their heads to see how the Pope would react. The priest swallowed.

From the far end of the table, the Pope came bounding, not with speed or anger, but with tenacity. He was a force of nature. A tired force of nature.

"I have faith," the Pope spoke, nodding to the cardinals, who in turn nodded back.

"Who are you really questioning? The Church? Michelangelo? Or me?"

"No, that's not what I meant at all."

"Or do you question God?"

"Do you really want me to answer that question?"

"Indulge me."

"300 statues, sir," the priest said. "Won't that require a lot of material?"

The Pope closed his eyes and made a cross. "The Lord shall provide."

A shadow with wings flitted past the windows of the basilica. 

* * *

There were cracks and holes in the mighty walls which ran along the banks of the river Tiber. Clara seemed to find them all just by touch, as she clung to the side for support, running down the stairs. Sunlight died away to the West.

Clara found out the hard way it´s not easy to run in a Venetian gown from the Renaissance. 

* * *

The gambler rolled around in dirt and straw, wondering how he'd got there. There was a candle and a holder on the floor next to him, dripping fat. He looked around. It seemed to be some sort of attic with holes in the roof through which he started to see stars. The ceiling was high and built toward a point, and the floor was covered in bird poop. Softly, he heard cooing and fluttering of wings above him, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see pigeons nested in every crook and den they could find. His presence had startled them as much as they startled him.

"You're funny," a voice said. Childlike and light. Soft and innocent.

The gambler reached for the candle so he could see further into the dark. With a thump, there came a body, rolling into the light where the floorboards were wet and dark and rotten. The man was still alive, crawling on all fours as soon as he realized he was free. The pigeons flew from one corner to the next.

The gambler saw the collar on his neck. He was a priest, dressed in black robes. As soon as he saw him, he crawled away, not sure he was friend or foe.

"Come find me," the voice said, disappearing down below. As the gambler moved his candle, the shadows moved, and he could see a ladder sticking from a dark hole. He remembered talons and fangs and something lifting him off the ground before he lost consciousness. Then he remembered a man turning to stone before his eyes…

The gambler swallowed and looked to the hole in the roof, wondering if he could take his chances out there instead. The priest regained his breath and found the time to pray in quiet.

But the ladder still beckoned. 

* * *

"Oh, Mike… what are you doing? How has it come to this?"

Clara stopped running from the shadows in the ruins. The once mighty columns of Rome had turned into a ruin. A civilization stripped bare and used as a dumping ground, with no respect for history. The site looked like a quarry, with bits and pieces of Ancient Rome sticking from the soil. Decayed buildings still formed half roofs and destroyed stairs. It was cold. The place felt like a cemetery.

"Doctor?"

"Have you started to believe your own hype, Mike? Or did you fancy yourself a promotion? The archangel Michael, the greatest warrior angel, and General of the Army to fight in the Apocalypse. That doesn't sound like you!"

A hooded figure rushed from column to column and disappeared. Clara tried to follow it, and tried to follow the Doctor's voice. "Doctor!"

"Don't flatter yourself! Your work is derivative. Your style is so pompous, and everyone has got these big muscles! I mean, why? When did Jesus ever do his own heavy lifting?"

Ancient stones were scattered all over the floor. They were hell to traverse in poor shoes, and Clara kept tripping on them.

"And yes, that's a religious joke, by the way. I make those from time to time. It breaks the ice at parties. Come on, Mikey! Don't you want to shut me up? I know you're there! Come out and face me!"

There he was. The hooded figure. He was standing at the center of a row of columns. It looked to be some kind of podium for an ancient theatre. The ancient bleachers were small, sunken and cracked, and almost entirely swallowed by the soil that surrounded them like a green and black hill in the moonlight.

"Doctor!"

"Clara, no! Stay back! Don't look at me!"

Clara didn't understand.

"I mean it! Close your eyes and turn around! Do it!"

She hesitated at first, yet complied instantly. He sounded panicked. Vulnerable, even. There was an Angel out there ready to kill them, so she trusted him to make the right call. With her back turned, she felt it safe to open her eyes again, but she found a column and put her back against it nonetheless.

"Doctor, you can speak! How is that even possible? How did you manage to break free?"

"I didn't, now shush. I'm sorry, Clara, but I need to focus."

"Killer Angel, got you."

"No," the Doctor said. "That's where you're wrong."

The Michelangelo Angel rose from the dark and landed on the stage.

"Michelangelo," the Doctor said. "You can hear me, can't you? I know you can. I need you to hear me."

The Angel shrieked.

"Oh my god, he's going to kill you!" Clara cried out, unable to look, unable to intervene. Her hands clasped the column behind her. She listened intensely, hoping the Doctor knew what he was doing.

"Doctor, this better be good!"

"It will be," the Doctor said, in a tone intended to comfort and calm the encroaching beast.

"But let's start with a little history lesson. Because I've met the Weeping Angels before. Plenty of times. And I've always wondered what the mystery behind them was. Sure, there were myths and legends even on my home planet, but I never really figured it out, until I got turned into stone myself. I gained… a little perspective. You see, they have the ability to send people back through time and space. What kind of creature can do that? But not just that, they steal entire futures, entire timelines, and they feed off all that potential energy…. And that's the key. They convert matter into energy. They converted _me_ into energy, and turned themselves into matter! And look at you! Where did all that matter come from? It didn't just sprout out of thin air! They've got so much of my energy they're selling it for a bargain! And the Angel inside your head has been gobbling it all up, because yes, there was an Angel inside your head and there still is. And it has been altering your perception for so long, it has made you believe things that aren't real.

Here's something I learned long ago. An image of an Angel is an Angel. There is an image inside your head of what angels look like. How did it get there? Because long ago, angels didn't look like this. No, they change with the times. With cultures, with stories. They used to be harpies in ancient times. All chicken legs and wings for hands, they were a plague. But they evolved. Their image changed, by different dominant beliefs. Belief is the key! Because a picture, an image, isn't the real thing. A painting of a pipe isn't a pipe. It's captured light on canvas. It's an abstract concept. It's just an image. But an image can become so much more. It can become a belief. And when it becomes a belief, it becomes so much harder to get rid of. It jumps from mind to mind when you're not looking.

The image of the Angel in your head has made you believe you are one. It has altered your perception of yourself, changed the image of yourself. When people have been telling you for so long you are divine, that your work is angelic, that you are an instrument of the gods, then you might as well become one! And that's ego. Trust me, I know about ego.

But this isn't you, Mike. You need to remember who you were. You need to see yourself as who you really are. When these Angels get inside your mind, they can make you believe stuff, they can make you see stuff, all of which is not real. They can make you think you're turning to stone. They can make you think you're an Angel. But you're not! Don't you see? You have to fight it! Come back to reality! You're not a monster! You're a human being!

Did you see what it did to those children? You could never do that! Because you're not a monster! Remember the children, Mike! You have to remember! Remember your humanity!"

The creature standing before the Doctor in the moonlight was a full-blown Angel by now. The white toga, the laurel leaves on his head, the beautiful immortally youthful face and the golden wings. In his hands, there was a sword.

But the image faded. The man inside came back to life. The Angel screamed and the man fell to his knees. The sword clattered to the ground and turned to dust. The golden wings faded into moonlight.

"Now that was amazing," the Doctor said. "On behalf of history, welcome back."

The Doctor turned his gaze to the stars. "I wish I could say the same about me."

His right hand had already turned back into stone. 

* * *

"Why the hell did you wake me?"

Thomassino turned to the driver and poured out all his chagrin. The man driving the cart was uninterested however, and only wanted to ditch his cargo and head to the nearest inn.

"The delivery, as promised," he said, holding up an empty hand, to be filled with currency.

Thomassino ignored him and managed to open up the stable doors to Michelangelo's studio on his own.

"You can park your cart inside. I'll pay half now and the rest tomorrow, when we've unloaded the granite blocks."

The horses managed to pull their heavy cargo inside for the final length of their journey from the docks.

When all was said and done, Thomassino sent the driver to the inn and closed the stable doors. The night was quiet. He stretched his back and let out an enormous yawn. His bed tempted him back home.

But before he left, he inspected the grey granite blocks. Their quality was fine. Just as promised.

As he turned to leave, he could've sworn he heard something hiss from inside the blocks, but it was probably just his imagination.


	6. A Game of Angels

"The Angel… I can still feel it, inside my head."

"It's not an Angel," the Doctor told Michelangelo. "It's an ant. Change how you see it and it will change accordingly."

"I cannot change my beliefs…"

"Then you're not really open-minded, are you?" The Doctor was starting to lose his patience now.

Clara helped Michelangelo to his feet. Her eyes averted, and his shut, because the Doctor had told him to starve the Angel for a while. The eyes are the instrument by which we perceive reality, the light the paint by which we form thoughts and images in our head. What is a painter without paint?

"When can I open my eyes again, Doctor?" Michelangelo asked. "Doctor?"

Silence. When Clara dared to turn her head, the hooded figure had gone. She still hadn't seen his face, and a part of her started to wonder if this really was the Doctor at all. He never dressed in a hood and cloak before. He stalked the ruins of ancient Rome like a ghost.

"Stay here," Clara said, guiding him to solid ground. "I'll be back soon. I just need to…"

Torn between helping Michelangelo and finding the Doctor, she wavered for a moment. Someone had to bring this poor man home. This man with a monster inside his head. This immensely talented man, who had no-one else to help him in the entire world.

If the Doctor gets sick, who takes care of the Doctor?

She stumbled down from the amphitheater, and found her way through the maze of columns and debris and buildings wracked by time, with only the moon to light her way. The ruins were doused in blue. The night had never looked so sharp before. Then a cloud drifted through the sky and cast a shadow on the ground. Clara couldn't see.

There was some kind of shed close by her. There were tools lying abandoned on a worktable covered in dust and cobwebs, and the roof had collapsed and turned into a heap of stone and rotten wood.

"Don't turn around."

Clara froze. This was her friend, so why did she feel so scared?

"Doctor, what happened? Why can't I look at you?'

"It's complicated," the Doctor said.

"Is it you though? I mean, it could just be your voice. How can I know it's you?"

"Clara, Clara…. My impossible girl. Still afraid of the dark. Well, you should be."

Clara turned around. The doorway was empty. She went to check and heard someone sneak up behind her.

"Doctor?"

"I told you not to turn around. How many times do I have to say it? You can't see me. That's the point. You're the one who knows me best. If you see me, you'll take all of me. Those are the rules of the game now. A game of Angels, which I can't possibly win."

Clara didn't turn around this time. She heard the Doctor move around the shed. He moved something on the worktable.

"What do you mean? I don't understand. There has to be something we can do, Doctor. If you'll just tell me…"

"They broke the quantum lock, and they did so, by stealing my essence. I fell right into their trap. It was stupid of me to endanger you like that, and I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Clara said.

"I wasted a tremendous gift. All my regenerations. All my possible futures. They took it. They've taken my reality and left me nothing but a shell, and I'm fading. I'm turning to stone, and once it overtakes me, there's no turning back. I'm fading, Clara. I'm scared."

Hearing the words come from his mouth terrified her more than any Angel. A tear welled up in her eyes. Slowly she stumbled backwards, reaching her hand to find the Doctor…

"I'm here for you, Doctor. You know I am. Always."

Her hand trembled in the cold air. Then, just when she thought he had already left again, his fingers wrapped themselves around hers and closed tightly.

"Whatever they stole, we're going to get it back. I promise."

"I'm like the Angels now. Not real. A figment of the imagination. A form without essence. Nothing but a lead on the wind."

Clara smiled. "That's what I was, remember? Let's be leafs together."

The Doctor squeezed.

"This isn't really my hand even. It's abstract. I'm using all my remaining energy to sustain this form, but it's not really me. Not fully. I'm stuck between dimensions, between time and space and reality. I'm the difference between the scarecrow and the farmer."

"I know what I am. I'm a Picasso. A drunk Picasso. I wouldn't want to guess where my nose is right now."

"Shut up, Doctor."

"You'll remember me, won't you?" the Doctor said. "I know you will."

"I think the universe will remember you, Doctor."

His hand slipped away from her grasp. She heard him shuffle in the dark and pick something up.

"But this isn't the end, Doctor. I know you. You'll figure out the Angels' plan. And you'll use it against them. I know you will. You'll defeat the monsters as you always do. You'll save the world. And I'll be by your side. If an image of an Angel is an Angel, and an image of the Doctor is the Doctor, then that is the image I choose to carry. That's what I believe in. That is what I'll always see. No matter what. In my dying breath."

"You can look now," he said.

When she turned and looked again, she saw the back of a hooded figure, holding a scythe, leaving the other side of the shed.

"You look like Death," she said.

"Death?" he said, and he examined the scythe. "I can work with that."

Clara closed her eyes and saw the Doctor. She always sees the Doctor. 

* * *

The gambler and the priest climbed down the ladder. He held the candle in front of him as he stepped on to a cold stone floor. It looked like some poor man's house, with a small living room, kitchen and a bedroom on the side. But that's not what drew their eyes.

There was a family sitting at the table. A man, woman and child. Yet their faces….

The table was set for three, clay bowls with cold soup and blunt forks and knives set on a stone table. There was a dog by the master's side, begging for scraps. Accept it did not move. None of them did.

Their faces were white and eyeless. The child's smile was captured beautifully on the white stone, except the gambler knew it wasn't. It was a moment frozen in time. A tableau fit for a family grave.

"Don't you like them?" the voice said, cheerful. "I think they're pretty. Won't you join them?"

As the gambler moved his candle, the shadows moved too, and stone Angels appeared where before the room had been empty. First one on either side, until the shadows moved again and two others joined them on the other side of the living room. Then they noticed the table had been set again, two more clay bowls added and two chairs readied for two more guests at the family table. One of the Angels pointed. They were meant to sit.

As they sat down together, the voice laughed. "Now we can play! And I love to play."

"Please let me go," the gambler said to the darkness. "I have a wife and child. They rely on me. Please don't kill me."

The priest prayed, clinging to the cross on his neck, while eyeing the statues surrounding him.

"They didn't spare this family!" he told the gambler. "Why'd you think they'd spare yours? There's no point in pleading to demons! But I have Christ on my side!"

"Please!"

"You two make me laugh so much! Come on, let's play!"

The candle's flame flickered as a new figure joined the shadows. It danced around her fellow Angels while they stood motionless and silent. She was laughing and smiling and careless as a child. Her wings seemed to float after her, weightless and beautiful. But every time they thought they had a good look at her, she disappeared into the shadows again.

"This one's a riddle," the Angel spoke. "Answer it, and I might let you go."

A bag of the gambler's previous winnings was thrown on to the table, clattering amidst the tableware.

"Keep it!" he said to the shadows. "I don't want it anymore! Keep it all! Just let me go!"

The priest ignored the voice, repeating the same mantra over and over again. "As I walk through the Valley of Death, I fear no evil. The Lord will keep me safe."

"So if I answer this riddle, I can go?"

The Angel laughed. "Maybe."

"Then what is it?!"

"Oh, it's easy. Just tell me which one of you I will kill first."

The priest stopped, locking eyes with the gambler.

"Which one of us you will kill…first?" the gambler repeated.

"Oh, we're going to have so much fun together!"


	7. The Angel Inside

All the doors were being locked as they passed, and windows boarded shut. They saw a group of pikemen of the city militia screaming and running while Clara held Michelangelo's hand to guide him home.

Moonlight touched the cobblestone roads of the ancient city, and the dead dogs whose bodies littered the narrow alleys. A fountain was empty, its last ripples fading on the surface of the pool of water. The statue that had once adorned its stage was missing. In fact, all the statues were missing.

And a baby was crying in the middle of the night.

* * *

"It's your turn to get the baby," the exhausted mother said to her husband in bed.

"No, it's your turn," Thomassino said, turning over to his other shoulder. I've worked all day."

His wife tugged at his sheets. "Get your daughter."

"You get her." He tugged back.

The baby's shrieks were growing louder by the second.

"This isn't a joke, Thomas! I'm exhausted and it's your turn to get up today!"

"It's not my turn! And I'm exhausted too!"

Then suddenly the crying stopped. Thomassino opened his eyes. His wife did the same.

They waited.

Both agreed without a moment's hesitation that something was not right when the silence kept going. They marched out of the bedroom and froze. The nursery windows were open. The curtains were silently moving in the chilly summer wind. As their eyes adjusted to the dark, they started to recognize the figure standing over their baby's crib.

The Angel smiled. Gently like one would rock a baby to sleep, it held her in its arms. The baby's eyes were open. She liked the Angel and the Angel liked her. In its cold arms, a child, still at the start of its life, so full of potential; a life that could change the world if it wanted to, in the right time and place.

The baby made one final sound before it disappeared.

* * *

"I can still feel it, in my head," Michelangelo said.

"Remember what we talked about," Clara replied, while keeping her eyes on her surroundings. "Don't give in to it."

"I won't, I promise," Michelangelo said. "Because I understand it now. It's temptation, and we must resist it."

Clara was getting tired. She started to lose her way in the city. In the dark, the streets all looked the same, as they moved through darker shades of blue. When she asked him, Michelangelo gave her descriptions of the streets to find their way back to the gallery, but for some reason she could never find the places she was looking for. Instead, she seemed to constantly find herself in the same place. In the shadow of a giant basilica.

"Where do you think the image of the Angel came from? It did not enter our minds. It was God-given. It was already there."

"What'd you mean by that?" Clara asked, but Michelangelo couldn't say.

"I sculpted them with these hands. I saw them with these eyes. I gave them wings and beauty because that is what they told me they looked like."

Clara's heart was pounding in her chest. She was flustered and cold. The Angels could be anywhere now the statues had begun to come to life. Not to mention there was a live one out there.

Clara imagined it around every corner, hiding in every shadow. She saw the flutter of wings in her mind's eye, heard the laughter of teasing children, but they weren't there.

It was already too late when Clara realized the trap she had walked into, when she remembered the words the Doctor had spoken. The image of an Angel is an Angel.

There was an Angel in her mind. There was an Angel in everyone's mind, since the dawn of time, the very concept of the image of an Angel that took shape and form in the imagination of children. It was guiding her to the basilica, where the Angels had been waiting for them.

* * *

Death roamed the streets of Rome that night. His sandals clip-clapped after him as he stepped over the bodies of dogs. They littered the streets as if they were simply dropped from the sky.

But there was still barking. A tiny sound, a frightened sound, coming from the shadows.

"It's okay," Death told the dog, as he kneeled on the corner of the street. "I won't hurt you."

The dog stopped, puzzled.

"You can come out. Don't worry, it's not your time yet."

It was a sort of Griffon dog, with big whiskers, short legs and sad black eyes. Its fur was wild and unkempt, grey in the light of the moon. It must've been a scavenger dog.

"It's all my fault," Death said. "If only I'd seen it sooner."

Death stroked his face with his pale hand.

"I'm just lazy sometimes," he continued, and the dog slowly neared wagging a tail.

"And it's not the first time. I once got tricked by a cult into marrying my own assassin. That never would've happened if I'd only bothered to do the research. That would have spared me a lot of fights."

He moved a hand across his face as if to indicate it, as if a thought of his face suddenly emerged in his mind and then vanished again, and he couldn't hold on to it.

"I don't know what to do now."

The dog smelled at his robe, turned around and laid down at his feet facing him. His little dark pupils glimmered whenever he spoke, as if he was listening.

"I'm sorry, but it's true. I never actually beat the Weeping Angels before. I always found a way to cheat. Yes, we've both been lucky, you and me."

Death patted the dog's raggedy head. He sighed.

"He's in here now," Death tapped his temple and looked out into the street. "And they have been for quite a while. They're mental parasites. Predators from the dawn of time. They're the things dinosaurs had nightmares about. They've been sitting on the shoulder of humanity, whispering into their ears, telling them what to do, robbing them of all potential realities and feeding off it, using it to create new form. And with perfect camouflage, because who'd ever suspect an angel? Humanity, always distracted by a pretty face…"

Death hovered a hand in front of his face again as if he suddenly remembered something, and then shook his head.

"I think they're going to win this time, but that might just be the Angel talking…"

He started to notice the hand slowly turning to stone again. Death couldn't feel his fingers.

The dog whimpered, and Death scratched behind its ear one last time before clutching his scythe again to lean on it.

"You want to come with me?" Death smiled. "And why's that then?"

The dog whimpered again.

"The sad eyes are wonderful, but you're not bringing any arguments. Really, why should I take you? You'll only slow me down."

The dog looked away.

Death stood up and dusted himself off, brushing off parts of his very existence along with it. He steadied the hood on his scalp and moved on into the night. Alone.

Ten steps later he stopped. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you…."

With a wagging tail, the dog ran after the hooded Doctor to join the hunt.

* * *

Several blocks away, inside the basilica of St. Peter, a joyous Pope finally found the schematic he was looking for. In his mind, he could already see the magnificent tomb that would be constructed in his memory, adorned by a thousand statues. The image of an Angel shone brightly in his eyes…


	8. Children of God

_How do you know what an angel looks like? Who told you?_

 _When you first saw the concept of a man or woman with wings, didn't you think, well, that is ridiculous? No, you accepted it. As if you've always known what they looked like. Because they are always there, in the corner of your eye, when you're not looking…_

* * *

The gambler ran. He couldn't believe his luck. This was the second time his life was spared, the third time he had won a game of chance. Yet all of it was part of the same losing streak.

The priest had sounded so certain in his faith, yet the gambler had had no idea, not an inkling of a plan of how he was going to get out of becoming food for these monsters. Anything was possible.

He remembered light radiating from the Angel as it approached the priest, blue eyes full of wonder seducing him as she kneeled by his feet, but the priest closed his eyes and started to pray.

"Yes," the Angel said. "Prey."

She slipped a warm hand into the man's neck and pressed her lips into his with a gentle but passionate kiss. The priest tried to fight it, but the angel wouldn't let him. The gambler had seen the process before and screamed, jumping from his seat and bumping into the stone Angel behind him. He looked, but they didn't look back. All of them seemed to be transfixed by what happened, as the Angel drained the life out of the priest's face.

It started in the tips of his fingers, and climbed up his arms as if he were slowly submerged. He tragically clawed at the wooden cross around his neck, prodding with a hand he could no longer control and fingers he could no longer bend. His lips turned white like chalk, like dry arid desert drained of all moisture until his eyes were filled by a film of soft dust, until his pupils simply faded.

The priest became a permanent member of the christian family unit at the dinner table.

The Angels shrieked when he turned, and the gambler thought they were celebrating, preparing for their next feast, but their faces had turned into maws and fangs. They were angry.

"No!" the Angel cried out, opening her wings wide. Candle flames flickered by a sudden burst of wind. "I won't let you have him! They're my pets! I found them! They're mine!"

She took the nearest plate off the table and smashed it on to the ground, where it shattered at their stone feet.

The gambler didn't stay to stay to see how it ended. He saw an opening to get out and he took it. No questions asked.

He ran out the door and ran without stopping, to get as far away from the Angels as he possibly could. Street after street became mere blurs to him in his complete panic. That's when he ran straight into a man with his eyes closed and a woman called Clara Oswald.

What are the odds?

* * *

Tears were streaming down her face. Her eyes, red and wet, suddenly watched the door, before she covered her face in shame, cupping it in her soft hands. She'd curled herself up on the dusty floor, her wings crumpled and lazily folded stuck under her own weight, their colors faded. A shadow moved over her, a silhouette in hood and cloak wielding a scythe that could not fit through the doorway.

"What's this now?" Death said. He tried his best to come up with the right words. "An Angel… crying?"

"Go away."

"You're not the first to break down crying when Death comes a-knockin' on your door."

"I'm not crying because of you."

"Of course not. That would be selfish."

A dog barked outside.

"Don't worry. That's Alex. Short for Alexander. He's my dog. I've got a dog now. I do, at least, what's left of me…"

"Just go away! I don't want you here!"

"Nobody does!" Death smiled. "Death is always the uninvited guest, until he isn't. But I'm still needed. Someone has to take care of your victims."

The family of stone still sat deathly still at their table, joined by their new table guest, the priest. Death took a chair and spun it around, then slid into the seat beside them, still facing the Angel.

"They are your victims, aren't they?"

"They're mine."

"It's like you made something. It's like art. Aren't they beautiful? How does that make you feel?"

"What do you want?"

"A simple life. Respect for your elders, a modicum of respect for the dead. Also, some answers would be nice. Were your friends mad at you?"

"They don't like me anymore."

"They're right. They shouldn't. You didn't share your meals."

"What?"

"That's the first step. Recognizing your own needs. Knowing yourself. It's harder than you think. Go on. What else did they say?"

"They said I was a freak."

"That's good. That's very good. You skipped a step and went straight for social needs. You're becoming your own person by the minute, fulfilling your basic needs. Abe Maslow would be proud. How does it feel to join the land of the living? How does it feel to believe in something, instead of merely being a belief?"

"I don't understand. I killed you, old man."

Death impatiently waved away her trivial recollection of her murdering him.

"Been there, done that. We passed that point already."

He laid his scythe down on his lap. The blade reflected the soft candle light.

"We're here now, together. And I'm sitting here with a brand new lifeform, the first of its kind even."

The angel wiped away its tears.

"Born only hours ago and so beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful nonetheless." Death sighed. "And I'm thinking about killing it."

* * *

 _They are what the dinosaurs feared. They are the bogeymen._

 _Whatever humans feared to be in the dark, anything they could possibly imagine, that's what they would be. They are the fear of the dark. They are the scary campfire story. They are the whisper of your name in a crowded room. They are the fire that forged our instincts. They are the imagination come to life. They are the predators in our minds telling us to run._

 _They are Fear Incarnate. The wolves in sheep's clothing._

* * *

"Your Holiness," the friar cautiously murmured, wishing his deepest bow would have his nose touch the ground in humility, like the biblical serpents cursed to roam the dust in shame. One of the cardinals nudged the poor man onward, so the friar cleared his throat again. As he bowed, he exposed his bald scalp to the room. "Pray, do tell…"

The cardinals had chosen him well. The friar was old and familiar in these parts, well-liked and loyal and someone who always arrived on time. You could set your watch by him. As a matter of fact, since he controlled the clock tower, one literally did.

"What is it, friar? What is your name?"

"Unimportant," he said. "I'm only ever charged with the morning service, and ringing the bells to start the day. The heavenly sound has made me somewhat deaf, so I may be a little hard of hearing."

The Pope's interest waned.

"Your dearest cardinals have told me of your plans for this mighty basilica, your grand Holiness. If I might ask, why so many statues? Does a tomb really need that many?"

The Pope didn't look up from his schematics. "It is by Michelangelo's designs, and his eye for heavenly beauty, that I choose my final resting place. It is God's choice, not mine, that dictates both my life, and my death."

When his eye caught something he liked, he smiled. "Oh, I rather like that one. I think I'll keep that, but lose the sepulcher."

"Pardon me, sir, did I just hear correctly, that you'll let a man like Michelangelo determine the plans for the Church? Do you really think it's safe putting the Divine Treasury into the hands of an artist? Statues cost money, your Holiness. Who will provide the expenses?"

"God will."

The friar sighed.

"You simply don't understand!" the Pope suddenly railed, and he faced the cardinals, who flinched when they suddenly realized their subterfuge had failed from the start.

"Art is a reflection of humanity. They are our creation, as we are God's. We are the brush and the canvas. The chisel and the stone. Art is an extension of our soul: immortal, beautiful, our hearts and stories forever captured, so we shall never be forgotten. A cultural heritage, gentlemen! The statues are us! This way, we shall all be remembered. We shall all live forever."

"As statues?"

"As children of God."


	9. A Divine Plan

Birds were shrieking in the cold night air outside, except they weren't birds.

"Sit. Down."

The angel hissed at the Death, like a cornered cat. She could have easily rushed past him, or destroyed the entire house for that matter, but instead Death's words had their intended effect. She stayed as if she had no other choice. The scythe in his lap glimmered sharply.

The angel clawed at Death, but it went right through him. Death brushed it off, and pretended to yawn. He flapped a stone hand in front of his mouth.

"Are you done now? I mean, you already killed me. And you can't kill me twice… because you can't kill a belief."

The angel resumed to cover her face with her hands and cry. Death rolled his eyes.

"You did this, you know, when you gorged yourself on all of my energy. You hollowed me out. If I had been wearing a bow tie instead of a hoodie I would've been dust, but I got myself a whole new set of regenerations for Christmas, and that makes a lot of potential energy."

The angel wouldn't listen, but Death waited and went on.

"D'you like the outfit?" Death asked, pointing at his attire. "I'm not too sure of it myself. It was either this or Batman. I'm not really Death, but then again you're not really an angel."

Death smiled, adding: "The power of cosplay."

"Go away!"

"Oh, I figured you'd be scared. That's the point. Everyone is scared of Death. He's the cold hard truth while you are a comfortable lie. I represent the ultimate Certainty of all living beings. It's belief that gives you your power, faith that imbues statues with life force and makes them come alive. I don't need belief, because everyone already knows."

"That's your plan?" the angel said, sitting up. Her face was red from crying. "Dress-up?"

"Basically, yes," Death said. "What's yours?"

The angel laughed. Death laughed too.

"I'm giving you a chance," Death added. "I don't want to kill you. Not if I don't have to. I need to know if you have potential. A conscience. Just tell me what the angels are planning, and I promise I'll let you live. I'll take you somewhere nice…"

"Alone?" the angel asked, and Death sighed and bowed his head in silence.

"The other angels can't understand… You're grown up now. It can be boring at times, but it has its moments. So I'm told."

"But they will understand, yes, they will understand when I turn them into more of me. The Angels will live."

"With my energy."

The angel snarled.

"Our food!"

Death gritted his teeth. Outside the window, the dog started barking.

"That's wrong and you know it."

"What's wrong?" the angel asked.

"Hurting people, that's wrong."

The angel looked over the statues of the family she'd left behind, the people whose lives she'd gorged on for snacks.

The dog barked again. Time was running out.

"You're just bags of meat and chemicals. You're gonna die anyway. What does it matter what I do to you? We live forever. What's the point of showing mercy? The human race is just an accident. "

Death was baffled. "What's the point? Are you seriously asking me that? What kind of idiot are you?"

"We walked the ancient forests until the great Stones fell. We are the Children of Light. We were there when the foundations of the Earth were created. We lift our voices to the clouds to call upon the mighty Father to raise him from his slumber. Who are you to judge us?"

"Who am I?" Death grinned hopelessly. "I'm just a memory. The ghost of the man you killed, come back to haunt you. Yes, be scared. We are judging you."

* * *

Alexander the dog couldn't see them well in the dark, but he could smell them. They moved from place to place quickly, sometimes he could see them on the rooftops, but often he found pairs of them moving from window to window, touching the doorposts and moving on, as if marking their grounds. They smelled like gravel. They smelled like graveyards and birds and rain.

"Master! Master!" he barked at the door, but he would not come.

He ran, his tail tucked between his legs, into the shadow of the alley. When the angels came by, he could hear them 'breathing', pulsating almost, as they drew energy from the surrounding air. He could smell them. He barked into the night, then regretted it.

They smelled like old roots of ancient trees, decayed and rotten deep into the soil. Peel off the bark and there'd be maggots and bugs crawling beneath. The smell was all around him, suffocating him. He'd never smelled it like this before. It was as if he could smell the moss growing beneath the carved toenails of the Angel's feet. A shadow moved closer…

A burst of lightning shot through the night and Alexander shuddered. He turned and the sight of the Angels made him curl up his tail and run for cover, all the while barking helplessly.

Why wasn't it working?

The moment the Angel touched the scythe a surge of power entered the world, but it wasn't enough. It was an echo of energy. A whimper. The explosion was enough to shatter the windows and make his toes tingle, but it wasn't enough to reverse the process.

The Angel's claws wrapped around his now as it shrieked mere breaths away from his face. Death struggled and kept fighting to hold on. Energy crackled and flowed through the scythe. Life was returning to him, but it wasn't enough. His hand was still stone and there were cracks appearing in the skin of it.

As soon as the angel realized what was happening, she let go.

Smoke rose from the scythe's handle. Death staggered, catching his breath.

"Your tricks won't work twice, old man! Your knee will bow, and before the end, you will be sorry! You will beg for forgiveness!"

The Angel turned and leapt through the shattered window, breaking the frame as it did so. Flapping its enormous wings, it rose above the rooftops and into the dark. She was heading toward the basilica.

"Why didn't this work?" Death wondered, pacing around the place. "No no no no…"

He put a hand on the head of the father turned statue sitting at the table. When he realized, he grabbed his own face in shock, and pondered some more. He left in the shadows before anyone could catch him off-guard, but his pondering didn't end there.

"I was wrong," he said to Alexander in the alley. The dog followed him, barking and the nails on his paws tapped the cobblestones as he ran.

"Regeneration energy isn't abstract energy. They couldn't have taken it. But what if she did? Just a sliver. Just a nod in the right direction. What if it could? What if I don't know? What if I'll never know and I'll never beat the Angels? What then?"

Alexander wouldn't stop barking.

"What now, Alex? Can't you see I'm busy?"

 _Bark! Bark!_

"What'd you mean 'you know where the Angels are'? And no, I don't know if you'll get into heaven."

 _Bark! Bark!_

"Well, you're not exactly being a good boy now, are you? Just shut up, I need to think."

 _Bark! Bark!_

He stared out into the distance, narrowing his eyes. The darkness of the basilica's silhouette seemed to stand in stark contrast to the white moonlight touching the clouds.

"Fear and hope and death..." he muttered to himself, "past and present and future. It has to be all connected somehow. And potential energy, that somehow rings a bell…" He looked on to the horizon and then shook his head.

"I can't stop the Angels if I don't know what I'm up against! I can't do it! I need Clara... I need…"

His eyes were drawn to the basilica's steeple, moving up to the point of the highest spire.

"…a lightning rod."

Death worked it out for a moment, then turned around. "Alex, you're a genius! Good boy! You're a very good boy indeed!"

Alexander barked proudly. Then he asked what the Doctor had in mind.

"You want to know what my plan is? It's simpler than you think. I'm actually gonna hijack theirs. But I suppose life is allowed to imitate art once in a while, no?"

He sighed.

"Let's get going. We have to move quick if we want to beat that sunrise. And I have a feeling I know exactly where Clara is right now. Trouble, most like."


	10. A God-Fearing Man

Leaves fell from the trees as if the world were suddenly shedding its skin. They gently twirled from the sky by lack of a breeze and covered the streets and corpses.

He wondered whether the Angels were also draining the trees from their energy, or whether he had simply forgotten it was autumn. He flicked his tongue. The air tasted like copper.

Alexander barked. He'd been so urgent that they moved on before, why suddenly stop? But Death's legs, or poor excuse for legs for that matter, crudely drawn from imagination, simply stopped.

Death was trying to bite his own nails, except they were made of stone. "Is that what I do now?" he asked and scoffed at himself in disbelief.

He faced the cobblestone street. Bodies of dogs, cats and birds littered the streets. To the Angels they were only eyes that needed to be closed. So many eyes. They didn't care for the animals. They wanted the humans. Their faith. Their life. Their reality.

He looked up the road toward the basilica, his words turning to ash in his mouth. He lost his train of thought and turned around.

"Did you know," he told Alexander, and the dog's little ears perked up. "there's actually a place called Trouble? It's in America. At least, I think it's in America. If I were a betting man…"

He stopped.

"Am I?"

Alexander barked impatiently.

"I mean, what if I lose?" Death went on. "What if I actually lose this time? It could happen. It has happened. So what if this is it? The real thing? The end of all things? It sure seems like it. Who am I to argue against it? Who am I? Who do I need to be?"

Death doesn't judge. It reaps. And it waits for no man.

"If I had a real body I'd actually be shaking right now…" He turned down his hood. "Is this what it's like to be mortal? All that self-doubt. I don't like it."

He tried to bite his nails again, when a leaf struck his face. He looked up, surprised, and watched it fall down to the floor. Why did he always get so easily distracted?

"It's time I face the choir invisible…" he spoke, as he turned up his hood again and gripped his scythe, taking his first steps towards certain doom.

"Bite the dust. Climb the stairway to heaven. Shuffle off this mortal coil."

He smiled, stepping over the bodies of the scavenger dogs without looking down.

"I'll knock on heaven's door. Pay my debts," he said. "I'm going home." 

* * *

White faces emerged from the shadows. The looks on their faces were excruciating. Caught at their worst moment in their life, and notwithstanding their last, they stood immortalized as a testament to the power of the Angels.

Most of them were soldiers. Clara recognized their uniforms and pompous attire. The Swiss soldiers of the Pope's personal guard were writhing in pain on the floor, forever screaming at invisible evil.

Whenever they tried to flee, there'd they be. The statues surrounded them. The horror carved into their faces.

"Don't touch them!" the gambler cried out. "Don't touch the statues!"

Clara already knew that. The stranger had lunged into their midst with such speed there was no doubt in her mind the Angels had sent him here. Oh yes, _sent._ Something in her mind was drawing her to this place and she didn't understand why. Clara only knew it made her feel unpleasant and cold.

She started to realize, as their fear of the statues lead them deeper and deeper into the basilica's square, that they no longer had any choice. As she saw the gambler panic and scramble backwards from statue to statue closer and closer to his doom, she knew they weren't being guided. They were being hounded. Into a pen. Like cattle. And fear was the shepherd's dog herding and keeping them in line.

"Maybe it's time you opened your eyes again, Mike," Clara said, her own words getting caught in the back of her own throat.

"I can't," Michelangelo said. "That's what the Angel wants. I can still feel it in my head. Whispering to me."

"Are you insane?!" the gambler cried out. "Open your eyes, man! Anyone of these statues could be an Angel!"

"Or everyone," Clara added under her breath, ominously. She didn't want to upset the others, but she checked every statue before moving on, keeping her fear in check.

"This way."

Clara tugged at Michelangelo's tunic and nodded to the gambler to follow her.

There was a small side street hidden in the shadows that lead away from the square. Problem was, it was blocked by statues. There were so many of them; they seemed to have been caught while rushing through, some kind of attack gone wrong.

"We can't go through there!"

"That's exactly what they want you to think," Clara said. "Except maybe we can slip through. Come on."

Clara saw the game the Angels were playing and refused to play.

The openings were narrow. Sometimes the soldiers stood very close together, other times apart, and some sat kneeling with their hands clutching their hearts when they died.

"I can't see!" Michelangelo cried out. "Help me."

Clara told him to keep close and to duck. He felt his way from statue to statue, carefully stepping over the feet of the dying soldiers without tripping over them. Then he felt a lance prick his abdomen and he carefully retreated.

"We're almost there!" Clara said, looking back to how the gambler was progressing through this small maze of mangled and thrashing limbs, like a forest of marble.

Michelangelo reached out to the nearest statue and felt a cold shoulder. It didn't seem to have any hardened ruffles or other wrinkles uniforms usually made, until he felt his way into the neck area. The face was even colder.

He felt drawn to it somehow…

The gambler screamed, and Michelangelo retracted his hand from the Angel's face, but before he could even draw breath he felt a sudden surge beam through every essence of his body. Like extreme goosebumps in a blizzard that made him forget how to breathe. He was spinning, lightheaded, his eyes wide open in shock, until he touched the ground, falling, and hitting rock. He felt as if he had just emerged from a freezing ice cold river unscathed and dry.

Michelangelo pressed himself against the cold stones, a man suddenly woken up and realizing he was still stuck inside the nightmare.

The Angel whispered when a figure emerged from one of the mausoleums, hooded and cloaked, holding a candle to light his way. His murmurings echoed through the darkened tunnels; tunnels cut off from the sun for centuries.

"Where am I?" Michelangelo asked. "Who are you?"

"You!" the old man in the hood cried out, his barely used voice croaking and sore. The light of the candle exposed his crooked teeth, brown, rotting and receding.

"You're exactly where you are supposed to be." The old man's hands were shaking. Was he laughing? Michelangelo could not see his eyes. "Your coming was foretold."

"What do you mean? I just got here."

"Your fate was set in stone before you were even born! We are all part of a bigger plan beyond our comprehension!"

As the old man moved closer, Michelangelo could see the shadows had played a trick on him. He did not see any eyes, because the old man had none. They had been surgically removed.

"Beyond sight!" the old man exclaimed. "Beyond sound! The angels will return. The trumpet will sound and the skies will open. It will be the End of Days!"

"Where am I?" Michelangelo asked again, but the old man merely laughed.

"We bathe in light!"

"You are mad! Barking mad!" He grabbed the candle from the old man's hand and ran down the ancient street of mausoleums. Shadows moved around him.

"You cannot escape your fate!" the old man yelled after him. "It is your destiny!"

There was only darkness now, and ancient stone, in the ancient necropolis beneath the old basilica.

Tunnels of crafted stone marked the endings of this cemetery beneath the temple, where popes of old and pagans alike were buried in secret and ceremony. They say a man called Peter was buried there among the stones, but Michelangelo did not know. He had no idea where he was, and if he did, he wouldn't have believed it.

He thought he saw statues, but it could have been his mind playing tricks on him. In his haste, the shadows parted before him only to close around him as he passed by. There were tables and runes that could've been part of tombs. Michelangelo didn't stop to check.

His fear had given him a jolt of adrenaline and renewed energy. Purpose. Except he wasn't sure whether it was his survival instinct kicking in, or the Angel whispering to him that he was making the right choice…

The tunnels narrowed as he turned a corner and exited into a room of stairs. Without hesitation, he chose to go up, where the space narrowed even more, and he found a hatch above his head, blocking his way. He carefully lifted the heavy stone and nudged it from its place. As he slid it aside, he heard voices close by.

"They are our creation! As we are God's!"

Michelangelo stopped to listen, until he saw the immense canopy overhead and realized where he had been taken. He was inside the basilica now. Sunlight still beamed against the windows. Was it morning already? Yet it didn't feel like morning, but evening instead.

"We are the brush and the canvas. The chisel and the stone. Art is an extension of our soul!"

As he climbed up into the main hall, he rose up beside the altar, candle in hand. The scorching fat was slowly dripping on to his hand.

Michelangelo recognized the dark robes of the cardinals and their hats. Then he saw the Pope.

"We shall all be remembered! We shall all live forever!"

"As statues?"

"As children of God!"

The friar paused and looked up at the altar. Seeing the look of surprise on his face, the Pope turned around to see what he'd seen. His eyes widened in shock. The friar stood dumbstruck and the cardinals hit the floor and bowed. Michelangelo didn't know why they were all looking at him so strange.

"God will provide…" the Pope muttered, and swallowed. Sometimes having one's faith proven right isn't as good as you think it might be.

Golden wings rose up from behind Michelangelo's back. A sword appeared from thin air within his hands, the same shade of shining silver as the halo that sparkled above his head like fire trapped in ice.

"You cannot escape your fate!" the old man had cried out. "You cannot escape your destiny!"

Michelangelo remembered. As he looked up, he saw eleven Angels standing on the second floor balcony, beaming with pride.


End file.
